I’m not sure I have ever seen a player bat in so many different lineup spots in one season than Michael Brantley did last year. In 2012, Brantley batted in every single spot in the lineup at least once except for the 9th spot. I have heard a lot of debate from my fellow Tribe fans on where they think Terry Francona should bat Brantley in the coming season. I’m going to try to make the case that leadoff is the optimal spot for him.

I know that there are probably a lot of people out there that will question this by pointing to his poor .227 AVG in the leadoff spot last year. However, I would like to point out a couple things before we jump to conclusions. First of all, Brantley only had 97 AB batting leadoff last season, which is way too small of a sample size to conclude anything. Michael simply got off to a slow start in 2012 as proven by his .250 AVG in April (when he happened to be the primary leadoff man).

When Manny Acta moved Brantley down to the middle of the order in mid-May, he started to hit again. Many people assumed that Acta made some genius move finding a spot in the lineup where Brantley was able to have success. However, what most likely happened was that Brantley coincidentally broke out of his slump around the same time. Michael is too good of a hitter to hover around the .240 to .250 mark for a prolonged period of time. It just so happened he got moved down in the order as he was breaking out of his slump, and then everyone started to assume that batting leadoff was not his strong suit. He has been a leadoff hitter throughout most of his career dating back to the minors. In 2011, Brantley had a .278 AVG out of the leadoff spot in 349 AB, which is far more telling than the 97 AB he received in 2012. I’m pretty much just trying to say that I’m not going to let one sub-par month justify that Brantley should not be our leadoff guy.

The only other person worthy of consideration would be Jason Kipnis. I’ve heard a few people throw around the idea of Drew Stubbs batting leadoff based on his speed, but I’ll be blunt here: .213 AVG, .272 OBP, and a 30.5% strikeout rate is a horrible combo for a leadoff man. Let’s compare Kipnis and Brantley. Brantley’s 2012 OBP was .348, while Kipnis had an OBP of .335. With the bases empty Brantley a .282 AVG compared to Kipnis’s .235 AVG. However, with runners in scoring position Brantley had a .265 AVG, 53 RBI and a .394 SLG, while Kipnis had a .303 AVG, 62 RBI, with a .455 SLG. According to the stats, it looks like Kipnis’s skills would be better put to use somewhere like batting 3rd in order to maximize situations that he can bat with runners on base.

Lastly, I want to take a look at the heat maps for Brantley and Kipnis in terms of their batting averages. Obviously, any leadoff batter will generally have more pitches to hit around the plate than a middle of the order type-hitter. Look at Brantley’s heat map:

Brantley is rock solid on pitches in the strike zone as 5 out of his 8 areas are in the red. Now let’s look at Kipnis:

As you can see, Brantley is the far better hitter in terms of pitches in the strike zone. Combining all the stats I’ve discussed, I think it’s fair to say that all signs point to Brantley batting leadoff in 2013.

Share this:

Brantley also takes a lot of pitches and works counts, which you want from your leadoff man. I just wish he would steal more bases. If he could handle the job, it makes the rest of the lineup a lot deeper because then you have some combination of Kipnis and Cabrera batting 2-3, Santana 4 and Swisher 5. All four are 20 HR threats.

Ryan Pinheiro

Yeah I completely agree. Brantley used to steal a lot of bases in the minors, but that has not translated yet to the big leagues. He has the potential to steal 30+ bases though, so let’s hope this is the year he finally figures it out on the base paths!

The Doctor

Given the options currently on the roster, Brantley seems like the clear choice. There’s nothing I loathe more than just throwing all logic about “maybe we want our leadoff guy to be someone who actually gets on base” out the window and batting some bum like Stubbs leadoff just because he steals a base occasionally. I wouldn’t be against them signing Hafner (assuming it’s for cheap) and batting him leadoff, but I think we’re still years away from seeing managers consistently break one of the stupidest “this is how it’s always been done” traditions in baseball. Back to Brantley, his minor/major splits on stolen base success would suggest he was getting by on pure speed in the minors, and that it’s simply not enough anymore in the majors – I like having a guy that can go 1st-3rd or 1st-home on a single, but in general I’m not super enthused about throwing away outs having a guy try to steal 2nd at the very beginning of the game right after he gets on base.

you convinced me. I originally fell into the bucket of people who looked at 2012 and felt that Brantley was a better hitter out of the #6 spot. But you analysis is sound and I hope he leads off.

Chris Burnham

I messed around with this in a column from a few weeks ago. I think Kipnis leads off. He’s more consistent stealing bases. In a perfect world, think they’d like Brantley to lead off because of his patience. I would guess he projects as the two-hole guy, but in terms of making it hard for relievers to match up, I’d be curious if they’d try Asdrubal in the two-hole and put Brantley at three (left, switch, left). But that’s just me spit-balling.

Steve Alex

If you could combine the patience of Brantley with the energy and base-stealing of Kipnis you would have a Loftonian leadoff man.

Graham

I love watching Michael play for us. I think he brings a great attitude along with above average skills in almost every aspect of his game. He’s got speed, he’s got a glove, his ability to make contact at the plate stands out compared to everyone else. The one thing about Michael that one could critique is his tendency to swing at balls outside the zone. Get him to shrink his zone and get more aggressive on the base paths….LOOK OUT.